SusannahThe Fountain
March 4th 2007 00:05
The Fountain
Dir. Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Rachel Weisz, Hugh Jackman, Ellen Burstyn.
This is a difficult film to write about because watching it is more like viewing a poem than a narrative. That is not to say that the film is without a plot. Quite the contrary as it contains three aspects of the one story that help to illustrate and parallel the themes and ideas of the film.
The plot is basically this: Hugh Jackman plays Dr. Tom Creo, a doctor and a research scientist whose wife Izzi, (Rachel Weisz), is dying from a brain tumour. She has come to accept the fact that she is going to die, while he is determined to keep her alive, and through his research he makes a breakthrough in science using a sample from a tree that was discovered in South America. Add to this a story that Izzi has been writing for Tom, called The Fountain. Her story is about a conquistador called Tomas, who, at the behest of Queen Isabella of Spain, journeys to South America in search of the Tree of Life, which is meant to grant immortality. Further to these two stories is Tom in the future, the year 2500, where he is transporting the Tree of Life in a spaceship into the heart of a dying star. Still alive after hundreds of years, and haunted by memories of Izzi, Tom seeks to conquer death once and for all by living forever.
This film is as rich in symbology and as complex in film language as, say, Don’t Look Now. In some ways it is a filmmaker’s film, where you have to be well versed in the language of cinema in order to fully understand it. It is the kind of film that a lecturer would make you watch for film studies and assign you the task of writing an essay on.
But that does not mean that this film is cold. It is actually Aronofsky’s most moving film to date. It is like an expression of love for his real life wife, Rachel Weisz, who is the emotional centre of this film. She gives a moving and mature performance as a young woman whose life is ending prematurely, but who knows that her life will continue on in the other forms of life around her. Hugh Jackman gives one of his most moving and complex performances as a man desperate to control what is happening to his wife, but helpless in the face of the inevitable.
The cinematography is striking. Shot by Matthew Labitique, every frame is bathed in a golden magic light. The lights from the stars of the future scenes are constantly echoed in the stories from the present and the past, for instance in the scene where Tomas goes to visit the queen, her chamber is filled with candles hanging in glass bulbs at varying heights from the ceiling. Circular imagery is constantly repeated, and shots and dialogue are echoed across the three stories, as they intertwine and repeat.
Clint Mansell, who regulary works with Aronofsky, also contributes an amazingly evocative score. With music from Mansell’s band, The Kronos Quartet, and Scottish band Mogwai, the soundtrack fits the film so well that you could close your eyes and listen to it and see every frame of the movie.
The Fountain is therefore well worth watching, at least once, because it is so unlike anything else out there. It is both deeply moving and thought provoking, and you will ponder its meaning, and the nature of eternal life, long after seeing it. Some films are not that well received by the public and critics when they are first released, but as their reputation grows over time they eventually become regarded as classics. I think The Fountain is one of these films.
Dir. Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Rachel Weisz, Hugh Jackman, Ellen Burstyn.
This is a difficult film to write about because watching it is more like viewing a poem than a narrative. That is not to say that the film is without a plot. Quite the contrary as it contains three aspects of the one story that help to illustrate and parallel the themes and ideas of the film.
The plot is basically this: Hugh Jackman plays Dr. Tom Creo, a doctor and a research scientist whose wife Izzi, (Rachel Weisz), is dying from a brain tumour. She has come to accept the fact that she is going to die, while he is determined to keep her alive, and through his research he makes a breakthrough in science using a sample from a tree that was discovered in South America. Add to this a story that Izzi has been writing for Tom, called The Fountain. Her story is about a conquistador called Tomas, who, at the behest of Queen Isabella of Spain, journeys to South America in search of the Tree of Life, which is meant to grant immortality. Further to these two stories is Tom in the future, the year 2500, where he is transporting the Tree of Life in a spaceship into the heart of a dying star. Still alive after hundreds of years, and haunted by memories of Izzi, Tom seeks to conquer death once and for all by living forever.
This film is as rich in symbology and as complex in film language as, say, Don’t Look Now. In some ways it is a filmmaker’s film, where you have to be well versed in the language of cinema in order to fully understand it. It is the kind of film that a lecturer would make you watch for film studies and assign you the task of writing an essay on.
But that does not mean that this film is cold. It is actually Aronofsky’s most moving film to date. It is like an expression of love for his real life wife, Rachel Weisz, who is the emotional centre of this film. She gives a moving and mature performance as a young woman whose life is ending prematurely, but who knows that her life will continue on in the other forms of life around her. Hugh Jackman gives one of his most moving and complex performances as a man desperate to control what is happening to his wife, but helpless in the face of the inevitable.
The cinematography is striking. Shot by Matthew Labitique, every frame is bathed in a golden magic light. The lights from the stars of the future scenes are constantly echoed in the stories from the present and the past, for instance in the scene where Tomas goes to visit the queen, her chamber is filled with candles hanging in glass bulbs at varying heights from the ceiling. Circular imagery is constantly repeated, and shots and dialogue are echoed across the three stories, as they intertwine and repeat.
Clint Mansell, who regulary works with Aronofsky, also contributes an amazingly evocative score. With music from Mansell’s band, The Kronos Quartet, and Scottish band Mogwai, the soundtrack fits the film so well that you could close your eyes and listen to it and see every frame of the movie.
The Fountain is therefore well worth watching, at least once, because it is so unlike anything else out there. It is both deeply moving and thought provoking, and you will ponder its meaning, and the nature of eternal life, long after seeing it. Some films are not that well received by the public and critics when they are first released, but as their reputation grows over time they eventually become regarded as classics. I think The Fountain is one of these films.
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Thanks the positive reveiw, most I have read are torn half love it, half hate it.